Weather Watch

A new weather station at the USF Botanical Gardens offers faculty, staff, students and visitors a snapshot of current weather conditions on the Tampa campus. The new weather station is a collaboration between USF News, the Botanical Gardens and Jennifer Collins, associate professor of geography, environmental science and policy, whose research focuses on weather and climate.

There's even a weather bug that provides the current temperature reading at the top of the usf.edu home page. More comprehensive data, including a live webcam, current conditions, a five-day forecast, radar, historical weather data, and resources for hurricane preparedness, are available on the USF Weather Center page.

Data collected at the gardens is shared with the National Weather Service.

"The weather data is important not only for research and helping people in the community," Collins says, "but the data — as well as the equipment — is a very important teaching tool for me."

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Weather data is gathered by the station in the heart of USF's Botanical Gardens. The gardens are a resource for multiple faculty- and student-led research projects.Photo by Aimee Blodgett | USF News

The collection devices at the top and center of the tower sense several meteorological variables such as air temperature, wind, humidity, air pressure and rainfall. The station reports continuously.Photo by Aimee Blodgett | USF News

Kim Hutton, coordinator of special events and volunteers at the gardens, uses the data collection station.Photo by Aimee Blodgett | USF News